Making Moves

After the Spurs game, Villa boss Steve Bruce professed to have “four or five things actively going on at the moment” in terms of transfers. Whether that means four or five more additions on top of keeper Sam Johnstone (who made a decent Villa debut), we’ll have to wait and see. More likely within this number, the club are pursing multiple midfield targets.

Certainly Henri Lansbury is one (an update on him below) and another strong possibility could be Conor Hourihane. Lets hope for two new midfielders coming in whatever else happens, because judging on the last few weeks of watching the team, it’s the most vital element to address.

Lansbury on Ice?

The good news as written previously on MOMS was the Forest midfielder Henri Lansbury was left out of Forest’s weekend FA Cup loss against Wigan. It’s a clear sign that movement is afoot.

However, as Nottingham Forest manager Philippe Montanier has said to the press, the current Forest ownership situation doesn’t help matters with American entrepreneur John Jay Moores is expected to complete a deal to buy the club on Tuesday.

Suggesting any Lansbury deal is on ice until then.

Hopefully, if business can be wrapped up by Thursday, then Lansbury should feature for Villa against Wolves.

But what of the competition for his signature? As the Birmingham Mail reported from the post-Spurs press conference, Bruce mentioned other interested parties, although didn’t give any further details about Villa’s interest in the midfielder.

“We’ve made an enquiry but so have two, three or four other clubs,” said Bruce.

“We all know he’s running out of contract but it’s not wise of me to talk too much about other players.

“He’s been a very good player in the Championship over a few years now.”

So far Derby and Celtic have made the most noise, but a Premier League showing late interest could spoil Villa’s plans.

Lets hope the plot doesn’t thicken too much and Villa can bag the 26-year-old midfielder next week.

Hourihane Love

In many ways, Barnsley Cork-born Conor Hourihane is in the same position as Lansbury. His contract ends at the end of the season, he’s a bit of a midfield talisman for his club chipping in with goals and assists, and also the fans would prefer he wasn’t being courted (a good sign).

Barnsley fans were so cheesed off with talk of Hourihane potentially leaving in January, that they set up a petition on Change.org. Barnsley fans are being asked to sign it to make it illegal for the club to sell Hourihane ‘to any other football club for any fee’.

When MOMS spoke to Villa Technical director Steve Round a few weeks back, he said that Villa should not be afraid of bullying over teams in the division when it came to our size and financial backing. If we had to take the best players of other Championship teams off them, then so be it.

Lets get bullying…

Tom Cleverley

Greek Myths?

There seems to be two teams that pop-up repeatedly when it comes to transfer rumours regarding outgoing Villa players. Turkish team Trabzonspor, as we mentioned recently in our article on players that could be potential leave , and Olympiakos.

Back in the summer the Greek team were reported to be after Joleon Lescott, before he ended up at their rivals AEK Athens. Then as the summer transfer began to close they were mooted as being potential suitors of Jordan Ayew. They were even rumoured to be interested in Tiago Ilori after he returned to Liverpool following his loan spell at Villa.

Speak of the devil, the BBC reports that Ilori is off to Villa’s Championship promotion rivals Reading for a fee around £3.75m.

Back to Olympiakos, so when a French website declares that the Greeks are now after Aly Cissokho, MOMS takes it with a grain of salt. Maybe they are just desperate to land a Villan? On a serious note, there’s no doubt that team Cissokho will be looking for a way out of Villa. Although, at least currently he provides Villa with cover for Amavi.

Downing Free

Middlesborough announce that Stewart Downing is available for loan and within minutes there’s a ton of stories writing that Villa are chasing Downing. Pure guess work and very predictable.

Still, he’s the type of person that perhaps Steve Bruce would be interested in and if Downing is up for it, then there’s logic.

No doubt they’ll some Villans who gave him abuse when he left, excitedly welcoming him back, but isn’t that always the way these things go?

2 COMMENTS

Mmm.. SB needs to get better ideas. Both on and off the pitch. 6 3 1? Give me a break. Asking for teams to come at you.

But.. Delph, Cleverley, Young have all been linked (though only at MOM’s have I seen the Delph one) and today Downing. WTF. I thought there was a new team in charge of transfers, this is like someone went back and asked Lambert who he wants again.

Oh, and yes by all means buy proven championship players, but you end up running the risk of becoming a proven championship club. The gulf in class yesterday was pretty painful to watch, though SB’s gameplan didn’t help matters.

talk of Cissokho leaving might make sense of rumours that we are looking for 2 full backs

But what of midfield the rumours about McCarthy seem to have popped up again over the last couple of days after a quiet spell following much talk of him over a month ago . But do we realy want to sign a player who is apparently made of glass ? Or so rumours suggest as he’s injured again